Procurement professionals are traditionally known for being more reserved than our colleagues in other disciplines (ahem… sales and marketing). And while there is nothing wrong with that, it does mean that we let opportunities to celebrate our colleagues and accomplishments go unrecognized.

Procurify recently announced the launch of the Global Procurement Awards (GPAs). As they say in their official press release, “The GPAs were created to recognize and celebrate those committed to excellence in the procurement profession.”

There are several awards categories and candidates can nominate themselves or another. The application is mercifully brief – leaving no reason not to throw your hat in the ring for a little recognition and an opportunity to share with colleagues.

Last week, Jon Hansen and I did the second in what will be an ongoing series of ‘Point – Counterpoint’ Blog Talk Radio sessions. Here is how these sessions work: we agree on a topic in advance and then I do my darndest to disagree with Jon for 30 minutes, after which he declares us in agreement. Trust me – the conversations are as entertaining as they are informative.

Elliot Epstein, CEO of Salient Communications, has partnered with organizations such as CIPS in the past to help sales and procurement professionals better understand each other. He has also done a series of podcasts on Sales vs Procurement with Paul Rogers – a three decade procurement professional that Epstein describes as the leading procurement coach in Australia.

He talked about the podcast series as well as the sales procurement divide in a YouTube interview titled Dealing with the Rising Power of Procurement.

Next week, professionals will gather in Phoenix, Arizona for ISM2015, the annual conference that marks the 100th anniversary for one of the most recognized institutions in all of procurement. There will be impressive keynote speakers, informative breakout sessions, fun giveaways, and plenty of chances to network. All of the resulting ‘brouhaha’ and ‘ballyhoo’ may belie the fact that procurement is in a time of serious transition right now.

Companies are spending more with suppliers than ever before. Supply chains are longer (or shortening) and are full of risk. The fixed cost of a high headcount procurement organization is starting to look less and less logical as the type of project we manage becomes increasingly long term and one-off. Baby boomers are retiring and Millennials are bursting onto the scene with their work life balances and crazy new ideas. Dare I even mention Procurement-as-a-Service?

Does this fluid set of circumstances really lend itself to a Centenarian association and old school networking? A couple of weeks ago, I don’t know how I would have answered that question.

For the last couple of weeks, Jon Hansen has been covering the unfolding story involving Periscope Holdings/BidSync and Perfect Commerce. You can access the entire string of posts here, but I’ll give you the Readers’ Digest version now…

In early 2015, the State of Missouri, awarded a contract for an eProcurement provider. Perfect Commerce and Periscope Holdings/BidSync were both in the running, but Perfect Commerce was selected. On March 11, Perfect Commerce received a letter from NIGP saying that their sublicense agreement for NIGP (the public sector categorization system) was being withdrawn. The problem here is that Periscope Holdings owns NIGP. In other words, the categorization structure is owned by one solution provider in the market.

For those of us in the private sector, this may not seem terribly interesting, and it might seem even less relevant. But it is an important story for all procurement professionals in all sectors to pay attention to. And here is why:

Listen daaahlings, let me tell you a little something about negotiating. Talking about money is so… GAUCHE. No no no, that won’t do at all. Today, enlightened procurement professionals collaborate. We innovate. We partner. We strategize. I do for you… you do for me… we have a relationship. No ugliness, no shoving. After all, there is no need to stoop to talking about dollars and cents. We have people for that. Right? Yes, well, have your people call my people: we’ll do lunch.

Oh please!

We can’t say that procurement no longer needs strong negotiating skills just because many spend categories are now being managed in a more relational way. Making that assertion demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about what it means to negotiate. Negotiation is a phase, not an action. There are a myriad of skills required to be an effective negotiator, and they are different for each set of circumstances.

Last month, my co-author Jeanette and I had a conference call scheduled with Jon Hansen for an introductory conversation about our book, Supply Market Intelligence for Procurement Professionals (shameless plug here). For some reason, Jon’s Canadian location prevented him from using my conference call account and we ended up in the virtual green room of his Blog Talk Radio studio. What that means is that, for better or worse, the call was recorded. (You can listen to it here.)

Some days I think I eat, sleep, and breathe procurement and supply chain webinars. On a weekly basis I update the calendar. I consider the topics, the speakers, the hosts, the likelihood of promotional content versus thought leadership. I make my recommendations every Monday (on Blog Talk Radio) and share my notes on Fridays.

In 2014 I covered 29 webinars by sharing my notes on Buyers Meeting Point and through social media. They covered a broad range of subjects, including risk, talent, organizational issues, negotiation, and global supply chains. When I look back at the hits per post over the course of the year, there are 5 that stand out for getting over 1K hits each. You might think it was a simple matter of time, and there is something to that – some of our oldest event notes have over 50K hits – but these five events were pretty evenly distributed over the course of the year. They also all have unique hosts, presenters, and topics.

As Jon Hansen and I work our way through our joint book on the future of procurement, we get the opportunity to consider what other thought leaders in the space have to say on the topic. In this week’s #FutureBuy resource spotlight, we will consider the major take-aways from KPMG’s whitepaper, FUTUREBUY: The Future of Procurement, which you can download here.

In September 2011, Wal-Mart announced a plan to spend $20B with woman-owned businesses by 2016. More recently, they expanded their Women’s Economic Empowerment program to include a ‘women-owned’ labeling program. Products that meet company ownership requirements will start appearing on Wal-Mart shelves this September1. Qualified companies can apply to be a part of the program through WBENC and WEConnect International.

Despite the company’s apparent good intentions, the program has not been warmly received by all, including some critics who feel calling additional attention to these products simply because of female company ownership does little to advance equality. As one commenter posted in response to a BusinessWeek article on the program, “The path to gender equality does not involve stickers pointing out that a product has been made by a female entrepreneur.”2

On September 3rd of last year, Jeanette Jones, Owner and Founder of Cottrill Research, suggested (out of the blue!) that she and I co-author a book. There was never any question of whether or not I would do it. I’ve always wanted to write a book. I enjoy doing research and I have been fascinated with procurement ever since I ‘fell into’ the profession in 2003. Jeanette’s suggestion that we write a book to help procurement professionals create their own supply market intelligence combined all three.

This week’s webinar notes are based on a May 29th panel webinar hosted by Proxima. The event is available on demand for free after an email registration here. In addition, anyone interested in the webinar should also read a recent HBR.com article discussing the four fundamental reasons why ‘Leaders Can No Longer Afford to Downplay Procurement,’ by Matthew Eatough, Proxima’s CEO.

It is not unusual for me to get an email from a colleague asking me to read an article or post and then share my two cents. It is unusual that following through on such a request would take me on the wild ride that it did this week.

If we knew what the future held for procurement, we would undoubtedly change some of what we are doing today. Since is it impossible for any of us to be certain about the future, our best option is to form a vision for what we hope the future will hold and align our initiatives to that vision.

“SciQuest, originally an e-market exchange, went public in 1999 with a $2 billion market cap. Two years later, SciQuest was on the verge of shutting its doors: the gross profit margin was running at 2% and the company was burning $25 million a quarter. With only $50 million in its coffers, this prototype for the dot.com era was on track to run out of cash by year’s end.”

The above excerpt from The American Business Awards 2008 Winners website made considerable references to the areas upon which I touched in my 2005 white paper on SciQuest. Specifically, was the SciQuest value proposition scalable beyond the cottage industry success that enabled it to grow to the point of going public with a $2 billion market cap in the first place?

Specifically his remark that it was “too early to expect IBM to have coherent plans for what to do with its (re Emptoris’) services procurement product.”

I of course did not agree with the totality of Jones’ position as it appeared he was suggesting that “acquisitions such as the one made by IBM when they acquired Emptoris are largely intuitive and representative of a nebulous fear of falling behind as opposed to being a reflection of a deliberate, forward thinking strategy.”